“You’re sure he’s not gonna go into this stoned,” Amato said.

“He’s not on anything big,” Frankie said. “You heard the guy. He’s a very savvy guy. He knows what he’s doing. He knows what it does. He don’t take nothing he can’t handle.”

“You wanna be sure,” Amato said. “Guys that go around robbing drugstores, they’re not always guys that’re just after money. Some times they’re hurting and they need something and they haven’t got no other way, they can get it. And they need it. A guy like that, he can’t live without it, he doesn’t get it, you know?”

“Look,” Frankie said, “Russell’s a motorcycle nut. That’s all. The first month I knew the guy, all he ever did was piss and moan, he hadda sell this fuckin’ monster bike, he had a Munch, one of them Mammoths? He hadda sell the bike, pay his fuckin’ lawyer. If there’s a bike in this, no, I wouldn’t take Russell. He’d go hairy-assed apeshit the minute he came in. The stuff? He uses the stuff. That’s all. He’s not hooked.”

“Because one thing,” Amato said, “one thing we really don’t need on this is a guy that’s going to go in there and start something off and get some guy. Because then they’ll have to report it and that’s when everybody’s inna shit up to his eyeballs. If Markie, Markie did this before. He was gonna do it again, he’d be just as careful as the last time, get some guys that’d go about it in the right way. These guys’re his customers. He wants them robbed, not hit. He wants them back again, they get time to think about it and forget it happened.”

“He’ll be all right,” Frankie said.

“I hope you’re right,” Amato said. “Now, the other thing is, this thing’s gotta move, all right?”

“All right with me,” Frankie said. “I don’t do something pretty soon, I’m gonna have to go back and knock onna gate and say: ‘Lemme back in. I can’t think of nothing and it’s starting to get cold.’ ”

“Because it’s just a matter of time,” Amato said, “some other fresh bastard’s gonna think of it and then it’s gone and we haven’t got the money.”

“No trouble,” Frankie said. “I’m starving and he’s got to go some place pretty soon with them dogs, and like I say, I don’t get my ass in gear pretty soon, I might as well kiss it good-bye. You got the stuff?”

“A car,” Amato said. “The kids Connie got, most of them’re stupid enough, but there’s one of them, probably if he started to get wet and he was outdoors, he’d go inside. I know where there’s a nice Chrysler. I think he can get it without hot-wiring his balls. I got two thirty-eights, which oughta be enough. You’re gonna have to get your own ski masks or something.”

“I’d like a sawed-off for this one,” Frankie said. “Something big, scare the shit out of them, you walk in the door.”

“You get one,” Amato said, “use it. Okay by me. Just don’t start taking your fuckin’ time about it, is all. We’re not the only smart guys in the world.”

THE 300F DID EIGHTY quietly on Route 128 north.

“She looked really great,” Russell said. “I mean, really. Beautiful big tits, fucked like it was going out of style. This’s really a great car, isn’t it? It’s like riding in your fuckin’ bedroom, but it’s still a great car.”

“I wished,” Frankie said, “one of the things I really wish, I wish you could still get a car like this.”

“Keep this one,” Russell said.

“Just what I need,” Frankie said, “a nice, hot car. No, you can’t do it, and there’s none of them around that’re in decent shape enough to buy. Fuck. Tell me about her some more.”

“Wanna blow your mind?” Russell said. “You’re not gettin’ any still, are you?”

“Tomorrow night I’m getting some,” Frankie said. “This goes all right, this’s my last night, a priest. Tell me about it. I’ll take care my own hog.”

“Well, you had the practice,” Russell said.

“That’s nice talk,” Frankie said, “guy like you that was sticking it in Goat-ass’s satchel. Very nice talk.”

“That’s the first rule,” Russell said, “a clean old man. I didn’t see no broads around, up there.”

“Who said Goat-ass was clean?” Frankie said.

“Not me,” Russell said. “That’s the next rule. If there’s no old man around that’s clean, take the dirty one.”

“I should’ve had them get you a goat,” Frankie said. “I had some clout with the keepers. I should’ve done that. The rest of us could’ve watched. You sure you’re not fooling around with them dogs, like John said, right?”

“Dogs’re liable to bite,” Russell said. “I knew a kid, I knew a kid that had a dachshund once … never mind that. Lemme give you some advice, Frank: stay away from the dogs. You can get nipped, and what I hear, that hurts. Stick with broads. If you can find one.”

“You know?” Frankie said. “I’m not sure I can. Maybe it’s the same thing. Maybe they’re not making broads any more, either. You can’t get a nice hemi, because it’s liable to make somebody sick or something, it burns gas, and it’s probably, it wouldn’t surprise me, there’s no more broads, either.”

“There’s broads,” Russell said. “Just like us. There’s always broads. Squirrel wants to do something, he knows where he finds us. We go in and we go out and he’s having drinks some place, and he gets the same as we do. He knows where we are. The girls? They’re the same. They’re just as crazy as we are. It’s just one crazy bastard taking advantage of another crazy bastard. That’s all it is. That broad I was with? She’s crazy. She’s beautiful but she’s crazy. The way she looks, she didn’t have nothing to do with that. She don’t have nothing to do with the way her head’s fucked up, either. But it is. She’s fuckin’ batty.

“She lives up onna Hill, right?” Russell said. “I go up there, she opens the door, she’s naked. Right there. Kind of threw me. She is really a good-looking girl. The stuff I been having, well, it’s not like I don’t appreciate it, you know? I was in a long time. But this kid, she was something. So I stand there, I’m just looking at her. And she says: ‘We’re gonna make it, right? You gonna stand there all day?’ So I go in and I bang her. Great. And then we’re lying there and I’m playing with her and she had some really good grass and it was great. Except she’s fuckin’ nuts. The girl’s completely nuts.”

“Gimme the number,” Frankie said. “Don’t go back there. I wouldn’t want you hanging around with no nutty women. Just gimme the number. I’ll go up there and I’ll read the fuckin’ Bible to her or something.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t going back,” Russell said. “I said she was crazy.”

“I don’t think you oughta go back,” Frankie said. “You’re gonna get in trouble, up and coming fellow like yourself, hanging around with crazy people. Turn her over to me. I’ll counsel her, is what I’ll do. I’ll make her feel better.”

“Right,” Russell said, “and then she’ll do what she says she’s gonna do and you’ll get blamed for it and that’ll be the end of you, Cochise. She’s gonna kill herself.”

“They all say that,” Frankie said. “It’s the first thing they think of to say, a lot of them. I dunno why they do it. They probably, they went to Catholic school or something. It don’t matter. I was going with this girl, I used to go with? Friend of Sandy’s. Had her pants glued on, for Christ sake. Not a bad-looking kid. She had kind of buck teeth. Nice ass. She wanted to get married. I didn’t know anything, for Christ sake. I wanted to get laid. Get married, go to jail, cut your foot off: I would’ve done it. I was so fuckin’ horny I would’ve done anything to get laid. I remember, I used to go, can you believe this? I used to go fuckin’ parking with this broad. I used to take my old man’s beat-up car and drive and drive and drive, get some place where she didn’t think maybe somebody knew her father’d see us. Used to go down Chickatawbut, the reservoir? I was almost twenny years old and this kid was, what, I dunno, seventeen, probably, and I used to spend fuckin’ hours tryin’ to get my fuckin’ bare hand on her fuckin’ bare tit. I think it took me almost a year. I took her to drive-ins, I took her to dances, I fed her booze, I breathed in her fuckin’ ear, and all I could do, I could feel her up from the outside. Through the sweater, through the blouse, if she was really drunk I could get my hand inside and feel her up through the bra. For Christ sake. The night, I finally got my hand inside the bra. Inside. I didn’t have it unhitched or nothing, just, I got my hand in there. I came in my pants.”